'Dancing With the Stars' couples gyrate in swimsuits

I realize this headline could apply to any episode of Dancing With the Stars — but this time the hard-bodied dance pros’ signature near-nudity is for a print-based cause. Luckily, there is also video. Four former Dancing With the Stars couples are featured in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue — Maurice Greene and Cheryl Burke, Chuck Liddell and Anna Trebunskaya (pictured), Ty Murray and Chelsie Hightower, and Lawrence Taylor and Edyta Sliwinska. Sadly, the ripped-for-her-pleasure Alec Mazo/Natalie Coughlin Speedo pictorials are nowhere to be found.

Watching the SI.com videos, I couldn’t decide which was weirder: that the pros were choreographing such contained ballroom moves on the spot, or that Edyta was not wearing leg warmers in a behind-the-scenes type of setting. Both were horrifying but hypnotic; emphasis on the latter. I have to give Chuck the MVP for Best Effort among the former contestants — he provided the strongest lifts and quickest dips, and of course Anna Tre-BUN-skaya really sold them. Ms. BUN is so generous: “I don’t know what’s sexier here — your eyes, or me,” she teased Chuck. Anna, it’s you.